00:00Well, Peter Burnett is the chief executive of the China-Britain Business Council.
00:05This is the visit of the Foreign Secretary.
00:08In fact, I've just been at the business event in Shenzhen,
00:12where I had the opportunity to exchange a couple of words with her.
00:16So, I mean, I guess two main takeaways.
00:20First of all, there's a deepening of the dialogue and engagement
00:24at a government-to-government level,
00:26which we think is very important within the business community.
00:30And secondly, there's been some outreach to businesses in China,
00:35UK businesses in China, Chinese businesses,
00:38headquartered in China, obviously, but also operating in the United Kingdom.
00:43And it's very good to see the Foreign Secretary also participate in a dialogue on business.
00:50From a business point of view, then, do you feel that this visit is a step forward
00:55or is it more a case of signalling that both sides want to keep talking,
00:59want to move along the same path?
01:01Is anything concrete being achieved, do you think?
01:03It's part of a sequence of dialogues that has been taking place
01:07between the United Kingdom and China,
01:11which started two years ago,
01:16and with the change of government.
01:18And it's been, I think, there was a lot of catching up to be done.
01:22And it's been quite intense, I think, since then.
01:28So the Foreign Secretary, this is the first visit of the current Foreign Secretary,
01:34but the previous Foreign Secretary was here once before.
01:36We've had an economic-financial dialogue.
01:39We've had a joint economic trade cooperation dialogue.
01:42The Prime Minister, of course, has been here.
01:45And in between, there have been a number of ministerial visits.
01:49So we have to do this.
01:50You have to conduct this engagement across ministerial departments and portfolios.
01:57And this government is doing exactly that.
02:00And we're very happy that they should be doing that.
02:04Peter, you were talking just now about the fact that Yvette Cooper was in Shenzhen.
02:09What does that tell us, do you think, about where we are,
02:12where the UK sees opportunities in China?
02:15Shenzhen was chosen because, I suspect,
02:20for the reasons that I think you're hinting at,
02:22which is that it's technologically very advanced.
02:25There is a lot of, in fact, the Foreign Secretary talked about AI
02:33in the address that she gave to the business group that was there.
02:37So I think it's really important that we have, you know,
02:41a dialogue going at a government level, but also at a business level,
02:44to understand what is going on from a technology perspective in China
02:49and to allow the Chinese to ask questions of the UK as well,
02:53which I'm sure they did.
02:55Because the UK actually is reasonably advanced also in AI and AI development
03:04and technology development and digital development.
03:08And so I think, you know, maybe that was, I assume that's what you're hinting at.
03:13That's probably right.
03:14That was probably the purpose of a visit to Shenzhen.
03:17The UK, you know, doesn't have a vast industrial base.
03:22We are an economy of services.
03:26Mostly 80% of our economic output is in services.
03:30And that includes software, AI, digital,
03:34alongside financial professional and other services.
03:39And so it's inevitably going to be, you know, to a place like Shenzhen
03:44that the foreign secretary would go,
03:46rather than to a sort of industrial heartland.
Comments